


Sugar

by bea_bickerknife



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Adultery (but it's not like you can blame them), Bisexual Murder Girlfriends, Blatant misappropriation of a mahogany writing desk, F/F, Face Sitting, Graphic descriptions of hypnosis, Grapic descriptions of tango dancing, Hypnosis run amok, Power play writ large, Very foul drinks, graphic descriptions of oral sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-26 11:36:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15000068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_bickerknife/pseuds/bea_bickerknife
Summary: At Esmé Squalor’s anniversary party, the City’s most sinister optometrist gets more than she bargained for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InsideMyBrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsideMyBrain/gifts).



> As ever, I own none of the characters in this work, nor do I derive any remuneration from its posting.

If you have ever attended a wedding, bat mitzvah, or clandestine mountaintop gathering at which you knew no one other than the host, then you are aware of the uncomfortable feeling that settles in as soon as this familiar face disappears into the crowd in order to attend to other guests. In this situation, a sociable person often strikes up a conversation with a friendly stranger. A sensible person, however, aware that the friendliest strangers are often the most treacherous, will often choose instead to position themselves near the refreshments and forge an alliance with any available household cats, dogs, or exotic reptiles.

There were no pets in the Squalor penthouse ( _“I can’t abide fur on my clothing, darling, not unless I paid for it to be there”_ ), but with no fewer than seven kitchens, two snack bars, and a cleverly-concealed vending machine featuring a rotating menu of gourmet canapés, it offered no shortage of refreshments.

Except, apparently, when it came to single-malt Scotch.

Georgina frowned down at the martini glass in front of her. According to the mustachioed bartender, it contained the current _in_ cocktail: a well-shaken but ill-advised combination of Cointreau, Armagnac, absinthe, and orange juice known as a Montmartre sidecar. With the first sip, the combination proved exactly as unpalatable as it sounded.

“What do you think?” For a man who had just committed first-degree assault on every last one of her taste buds, he looked remarkably cheerful.    

“ _That_ ,” she informed him with a reproachful grimace, setting the glass back down on the bar, “isn’t a sidecar. It’s a hearse.” 

His smile faltered slightly. “Well, it’s not just fashionable, you know,” he informed her, clearly hoping that pleasant conversation might earn him his tip back. “It’s also extremely romantic. I heard that Mrs. Squalor designed it herself. She and her husband honeymooned in Paris, you know, so not only is it _in_ , it’s also a very fitting drink for their anniversary celebration.”

 _In that case, it’s arsenic you want, not absinthe_. Not one but two distinct aftertastes lingered on Georgina’s tongue, and she realized that the cocktail didn’t simply fail to combine the flavors of anise and orange into something palatable. It failed to combine them at all. “Oh, _very_ fitting,” she echoed with a faint smirk, turning on her heel and making her way back through the crowd.


	2. Chapter 2

For the past hour and a half, she had been observing the party from a bistro table at the far end of the mezzanine overlooking the ballroom. _Observing the party_? She scoffed at herself as she scanned the crowd. _Cut the crap, Georgina. As if you’re observing anything other than **her**._ Easily two hundred guests had packed into the room, a glittering, glinting sea of humanity – metallic fabrics were _in_ – but within a matter of seconds, she found who she was looking for.

Esmé’s dress seemed to glow. Floor-length and strapless and sinfully clingy through the bodice, it flowed over the contours of her body like molten gold. A slit in the fabric exposed the impossible length of her left leg when she walked, but at the moment she was still, leaning casually against a marble column, deep in conversation with a woman holding a small notepad

Georgina squinted over her spectacles, wishing that she were still the sort of person who brought opera glasses to an anniversary party. The scribbling woman – _either a reporter or a compulsive novelist –_ struck her as oddly familiar, like a copy of Esmé made on a printer that was running out of ink. She wore a dress of the same style as the hostess’, but rather than highlighting her features, the shimmering cloth outshone them, and the garment looked as if it was wearing _her_. Even in heels, she was a few inches shorter than Esmé, and there was an overly earnest tilt in her posture that Georgina disliked instantly.

She liked it even less when the woman stepped closer. Instead of recoiling in defense of her personal space, Esmé reached out toward her, caressing her sloped shoulder as she bent down to speak directly into her ear. They stayed like that for several seconds, their bodies nearly flush. Then Esmé threw her head back, her clear, rich laughter audible even over the full orchestra she’d hired for the evening.

Abruptly, Georgina rose to her feet and snatched up her cane.

More than a few pairs of eyes fixed on her as she descended the grand staircase into the ballroom, but she remained resolute – a word which here means “so intently focused on her goal that she paid no attention to the attention being paid to her.” By the time she stepped off the final marble step and onto the polished parquet, the reporter appeared to have abandoned all pretense of journalism. The hand gripping her notebook and pen hung bonelessly by her side, and if the expression on her face as Esmé toyed with a drab curl of her hair was anything to go by, the words coming out of her mouth seemed unlikely to be interview questions.

The phrase “seeing red” refers to a phenomenon in which a person becomes so angry that a reddish haze seems to descend in front of his or her eyes. A parent, for instance, might see red if she discovered that her children had ruined a book in her library, particularly if that book contained a coded message. A villain might see red if a group of orphans foiled one of his dastardly schemes, particularly if it was not the first time they had managed to do so, and a competent politician might see red if she lost an election to a loudmouthed buffoon, particularly if that buffoon also had no relevant experience in government.

As the smaller woman reached up to stroke Esmé’s cheek, Georgina Orwell saw red. Her grip on the handle of her cane tightened to a white-knuckled stranglehold. The set of her jaw and the speed of her stride were more than enough to part the crowd around her, but just as she broke through to the front of the mass of guests, the room seemed to redden even further, and she realized that the crimson glow had less to do with her ire – a word which here means “overwhelming desire to maim a member of the press corps” – and more to do with the heart-shaped red spotlight shining down onto the center of the dance floor a few yards ahead of her. When she turned her attention back toward the pillar, the reporter was alone.

“What’s happening?” whispered a curious voice from somewhere over Georgina’s left shoulder. The lights began to dim.

“It’s the anniversary dance!” exclaimed a second voice, as though this should have been obvious.

“How _romantic_ ,” sighed a third voice. “Oh, I just wish…”

Not particularly caring what the owner of the third voice wished, Georgina shifted uncomfortably in place. She had a clear view of the dance floor whether she wanted it or not. Going by the whispers behind her, she was almost certain that she did not, but pushing her way back through the crowd in the dark struck her as an equally unpleasant proposition.

The spotlight throbbed garishly. An anticipatory hush filled the ballroom, and Georgina crossed her arms, preparing herself for whatever it was she was about to witness.

She wasn’t prepared, of course.

She wasn’t prepared when Esmé swept into the center of the room, glossy curls cascading over her shoulders as she struck a dramatic pose. She wasn’t prepared when Jerome strode toward her with a gait like a self-satisfied salesman who’d just struck a profitable deal. She wasn’t prepared when the orchestra struck a sudden, wavering chord before sliding into a Latin-sounding melody, and she wasn’t prepared when Esmé insinuated herself against her husband, draping one arm around his neck and clasping his left hand in her right. In fact, the only thing she felt even remotely prepared for was the realization that, although Jerome’s hold on his wife seemed to imply that he should be leading her through the steps, it was patently obvious – a phrase which here means “clear to anyone with a functioning pair of eyes, or even just one eye, if that eye had received proper optometric and ophthalmic care” – that she was the one guiding them across the parquet.

For a moment, Georgina had to suppress a laugh. It wasn’t a startled guffaw, nor was it a surprised giggle. It wasn’t even a derisive snicker at the idea of Jerome Squalor taking tango lessons. It was the shifty, uncomfortable laugh of someone who has just heard a joke at their own expense. As the violins reached a fever pitch and the couple whirled in the spotlight, the gold of Esmé’s dress reflected the red glow with every sinuous movement of her body, but Georgina hardly noticed. She couldn’t tear her attention away from Jerome’s hand – _such pudgy little fingers_ , she noticed with a wave of nausea, _like undercooked sausages_ – as it made its way down Esmé’s back. When it reached the base of her spine and moved lower, Esmé’s eyes fell shut. A look of feline satisfaction settled over her features, and Georgina no longer felt like laughing.

She felt like leaving, and so, turning her back on the happy couple and pushing her way through the crowd, she did just that.


	3. Chapter 3

Leaving the penthouse at 667 Dark Avenue was always easier said than done.

Having passed through a billiards room, a mahjong room, a karaoke room, a wine-tasting room, and several dining rooms of varying levels of formality, Georgina finally located a door that looked as if it might lead back toward the entrance hall. When she passed through it, however, she found herself in yet another unfamiliar corridor.

“ _Dammit_ ,” she muttered as she started down the hallway, not bothering to close the door behind her _._ Esmé had tried on multiple occasions to give her a full tour, but the apartment contained so many secluded rooms with such a tempting aray of horizontal surfaces that they had never managed to complete the circuit. As a result, Georgina knew the bedroom wing like the back of her hand (a phrase which here means “intimately, in all senses of the word”). She was more than passingly familiar with the parlor wing. She could navigate the kitchen wing with reasonable confidence, but tonight had marked her first visit to the entertainment wing, and anything beyond it remained more or less a mystery.

Georgina was not in the mood for a mystery.

 _Well_ , she thought to herself, _that’s not quite true_. The stacked heels of her black Oxford brogues clacked against the marble floor as she made her way farther down the hall. _If you were careful about it, the police would probably consider the apparent murder-suicide of a journalist and a wealthy businessman a mystery, particularly if you hypnotized one of them into leaving a coded note._

She shook her head. _Too many witnesses. Not enough time. Still_ … It was a savagely satisfying concept, and as she passed by door after mahogany door and sconce after Art Deco sconce, she slipped further and further into the fantasy. Midway through an internal debate over which of the two would break down first, and which exact words they might use to beg for their lives, and whether or not Jerome’s mustache would tremble while he made a heartfelt appeal to her better judgement, she realized that she was no longer alone.

Georgina stopped.

The footsteps behind her did not.

Stiletto heels clicked quickly along the corridor. It sounded as if Esmé might break into a run at any moment, but as curious as she was to see that spectacle with her own eyes, Georgina refused to give her the satisfaction of turning around.

“Georgie, wait, I – ”

There was nothing to be gained by trying to outpace her, but standing still felt uncomfortably like capitulation, so Georgina sighed and started forward. As the pursuing footfalls sped up to an unsteady-sounding jog, she felt a flash of pride at how measured her own strides seemed by comparison. The combination sounded incongruously musical, a steady staccato of quarter notes underlying frantic eighths. Then the eighths turned to sixteenths, growing louder and more frenetic by the second until, in a flurry of perfume and swirling gold fabric and long, bony fingers, Esmé caught her by the wrist.

“Where on earth are you _going_?” she asked, out of breath and out of sorts. “It’s _out_ to leave a party so early in the evening, and besides, we’ve hardly even had a chance to say hello yet.”

“That’s not my fault, Esmé.” If her hostess’ dress had been eye-catching across the ballroom, it was positively breathtaking now, a gleaming second skin that clung to the curves of her breasts and the plane of her stomach before cascading over her hips in shimmering folds that brushed the floor. The chase had left her hair askew. Her cheeks were pink, and her chest had taken on a ruddy flush that Georgina normally associated with an entirely different type of exertion, but this wasn’t the time to give in to distraction.

“Fault?” Abruptly, Esmé released her grip on Georgina’s wrist and reached instead for the brass handle of the nearest door. “Who said anything about fault? Honestly, darling, I can’t _imagine_ why you’re so upset.”

If you have ever spent considerable time with your grandparents, or if you are a grandparent yourself, or if you have studied the speech patterns of grandparents in the course of your research into a suspicious fire at a bingo hall, then you may have encountered the phrase _to stick in one’s craw_. The word _craw_ is an old-fashioned term for the stomach, and when there is something that someone would prefer not to say, but must say anyway, that thing is said to stick in his or her craw. An admission of guilt, for instance, might stick in the craw of a noble and innocent man, because it is not true. An apology might stick in the craw of a villainous person, because it is probably not true either, and also because villainous people rarely enjoy admitting that they are villains. But _to stick in one’s craw_ is a phrase that can also be used upon hearing something that is difficult to believe, and so, although the words “I can’t imagine why you’re so upset” did not stick in Esmé’s craw as she ushered the optometrist into the darkened room, something about the way she said them stuck firmly in Georgina’s. They sounded a little too glib, a little too much like a line the actress had spent time rehearsing.

A little too much like a lie.

No sooner had Esmé pulled the door closed behind them than Georgina seized her by the shoulders, pinning her against it as her cane clattered to the floor. “Oh, yes, you can,” she hissed. “You knew _exactly_ what you were doing out there, didn’t you?” Receiving no response beyond a startled stare, she tightened her grip. “Answer me!”

“I was – _ow_ , Georgie! I was being a good hostess! You _know_ I’m expected to speak with the press, darling, you _know_ I have to keep up appearances with Je–”

“Your _tongue_ was practically in the press’ _ear_!”

“Geraldine has trouble hearing over loud music!”

“Then maybe _Geraldine_ ” – it came out more sneer than name – “ought to invest in some hearing aids the next time she reports on a party where the hostess lets her husband grope her to music and calls it dancing.”

“You genuinely think I enjoyed that?”

“It looked that way to me.”

“I’m an _actress_ , darling.” Condescension dripped from every syllable. “Remember _?_ I used to be paid to look like I was enjoying all _sorts_ of miserable things.”

“How could I forget?” cried Georgina, louder than she really meant to. “Well, maybe you’ll get around to telling me about how miserable you were once you’re done passing yourself around like a plate of goddamn _canapés._ ”

Esmé lifted her left hand and Georgina flinched, but the blow never came. Bony fingers tangled into her hair instead, nails digging in near the base of her skull as the taller woman forced her to meet her eyes. “Oh, I’m going to tell you about it _now_ ,” Esmé growled. “First, I’m going to tell you about how outrageously I had to flirt with Geraldine during that interview, because nothing else got her to stop asking questions about the distinguished woman in the unfashionable spectacles I’d been staring at all night. And then I’m going to tell you about spending every last second of that god-awful tango with my eyes shut so I could pretend those were _your_ hands all over me.” She lowered her voice, her thumb stroking lazy circles over the tender skin behind Georgina’s ear. “And now I’m telling you how very, _very_ ready I am to stop pretending.”

“Ah,” replied Georgina, fighting the urge to close her eyes at the sensation. “So this is all on _your_ schedule? Of course it is. Next time I’ll remember to bring a book to pass the time until you decide it’s time to – ”

“Do you know where we are?” Esmé interrupted.

Georgina glanced over her shoulder. The lights in the were out, but the glow of the city below illuminated a wall of well-organized bookcases, a few nondescript filing cabinets, and a wooden chair behind an imposing but empty desk. “An office,” she said coolly.

“ _Jerome’s_ office,” corrected Esmé. “That desk is the only piece of furniture in this entire penthouse that he wouldn’t let me get rid of when I moved in. He actually _argued with me_ about it.” She paused for a moment to let that sink in. “He built it with his brother before he died – or was it his father? Maybe his butler. Something like that, anyway. I wasn’t paying attention, but in any case, he doesn’t want me anywhere near it. He’s convinced I’ll do something wicked. And do you know what I want for my anniversary?” Her fingers slipped out of Georgina’s hair to trail delicately down the side of her neck. “I want you to lay me down on top of it,” she whispered, “and I want to prove him right.”

“That’s what you want, is it?” Georgina let the emphatic _yes_ she received in response go unacknowledged, forcing herself to remain deliberately expressionless as she watched the cocky certainty drain from Esmé’s face with each passing second.

 _That’s right_ , she thought. _Let’s see **you** do the waiting for a change._


	4. Chapter 4

Ten seconds passed. Esmé shifted uncomfortably against the wall.

Somewhere around twenty seconds, she looked away.

Thirty seconds in and she broke. “You can’t possibly blame _me_ for all of this,” she blurted out. “I’m stuck with Jerome for the time being and Geraldine makes for a perfectly adequate plaything, but it’s _you_ I want, and you know it.” Wide, dark eyes searched Georgina’s face. “You do know that, Georgie, don’t you?”

A wordless moment passed. Abruptly, the optometrist stepped back. “Turn around.”

Esmé was facing the wall in an instant, palms flat against it and legs slightly apart, looking for all the world as if she expected to be patted down for contraband. _That’s my little felon_. “I’m sure you know how remarkable this dress looks on you,” Georgina commented. One hand reached for the zipper as the other slid down the side of Esmé’s body, savoring in the sensation of sleek lamé over the warm curve of her waist.

“But let me guess.” Esmé shot a coy look over her shoulder. “It would look even better on the floor?”

The fabric fell open to expose the long, lean expanse of her back, from the nape of her neck to the dimples at the base of her spine. “Careful. If you keep making passes at yourself, I might decide you don’t need me anymore.”

“Oh, but I do need you.” Turning away from the wall with her left hand splayed out just above her breastbone to support her dress, she sidestepped the smaller woman, crossing the distance to the desk in a few steps before glancing back beseechingly. “ _Desperately_.”

“Well, you’ve done a piss-poor job of showing it tonight.” Almost before the words left her mouth, Georgina cringed at how petulant they sounded. _Not petulant_. _**Hurt**_. Before she had time to distract her with another barb, however, the gown had slithered to the floor and Esmé was settling herself on the edge of her husband’s desk wearing nothing but a pair of sheer black stockings and an elaborate garter belt.

“Then come over here,” she purred, “and find out for yourself.” She bit her lip, one pale hand dropping down into the shadow between her thighs. “So _wet_ , Georgie, we both know you want it…”

She was infuriating and she was obscene and she was utterly, outrageously transparent, but she was also right. With the lights of the City behind her, her movements were only half-visible, but going by the soft, slippery sounds that grew increasingly audible with every step Georgina took toward her, she also hadn’t been exaggerating.

“You did this to me, you know.” Esmé spoke quietly, her tone casually provocative. “Geraldine can’t manage it, no matter how hard she tries, and you know perfectly well it wasn’t Jerome.” She let out a low, rueful chuckle. “Oh, if he knew…”

“Knew what?” Standing between the younger woman’s spread legs, Georgina was close enough to murmur into the crook of her neck. “Knew what a brazen little _minx_ he married?”

“ _God_ , yes _._ ” Tilting her head to allow for better access, Esmé lowered her voice. “Knew how many times I’ve fucked you in his bed,” she continued, “knew all the vile, _twisted_ things I’ve begged you to do to me, knew the only way I can get off while he’s screwing me is imagining you between my legs – ” She broke off with a whimper as sharp as the teeth that had nipped at her jaw. “ _Ooh_ , yes, leave a mark, darling. Make it _hurt_.”

The term _glutton for punishment_ struck Georgina as more than appropriate. “And why should I do that?” Without the edge in her voice, the question might have sounded pleasantly neutral.

Esmé knew better. “Because I’ve been _bad_ ,” she crooned. “I’ve been absolutely _dreadful_ tonight.”

 _So **that’s** how she wants to play this out. _ Idly, the optometrist fingered the lace at the top of Esmé’s stocking. “Go on.”

“I knew you were watching me,” she elaborated, still in her most contrite tone. “I knew you were watching, and I knew you’d be angry, and I did all of it anyway.”

“Why?” One syllable, dispassionately delivered.

“I wanted to see if I could make you jealous,” she confessed. “If you…”

“If I _what_ , Esmé?”

“If you wanted me to yourself.” That sounded perilously close to the sort of promise the younger woman refused to make, let alone keep, until she added a hasty amendment. “Well, for a while, anyway.”

“So you decided the best way to find out would be to spend the evening acting like a tramp?” Georgina kept her voice steady, but a hint of brutality bit into the word _tramp_.

“I couldn’t help myself, darling, I couldn’t _stop_.” It seemed she couldn’t help herself now, either, and she let out a long, shuddering groan as she finally allowed a finger to slip inside. “Oh, god…”

Georgina tilted her head to the side, watching her with the kind of focus she normally reserved for optometric textbooks and delicate adjustments at her workbench. “And if I do?”

“If you…?”

“If I want you to myself. Well,” – she paused, mimicking Esmé’s phrasing – “for a while, anyway.”

“Then _take_ me.” It came out hasty and desperate and much, much closer to a wail than either of them could really afford in a penthouse crawling with guests. “ _Now_ , Georgie, I can’t – ”

Something clenched in Georgina’s abdomen. Reaching out, she clasped Esmé’s wrist in her hand, stilling her movements. “You can wait if I tell you to wait,” she said firmly.

A frustrated sound rose in Esmé’s throat, but she lowered her hand.

“My hearing isn’t what it used to be,” Georgina said wryly, “so I didn’t quite catch that. Did you want to say something?”

Nothing was wrong with optometrist’s hearing and they both knew it. Esmé replied with her best attempt at innocence. “Nothing at all.”

“That’s what I thought.” Varnished in a deep shade of emerald, Georgina’s short, neat fingernails gleamed in the half-dark as she stroked at the fastener that held her blazer closed. “You know, I’m feeling overdressed. Why don’t you take care of that?” Eagerly, Esmé reached toward her, but she raised a finger in warning. “ _Slowly_ , Esmé. You’re going to take your time.” She spoke softly, but her tone was steel. “We’re doing this my way now.”


	5. Chapter 5

Sliding her hands upward, Esmé grasped at the crisp lapels of Georgina’s jacket. It was a familiar gesture, one she often used to pull her closer on nights when she was in the mood to wrench the fabric down her arms, to claw at her blouse and tear at her trousers until nothing remained but bare skin and that low, keening growl that Georgina never meant to make, but sometimes managed to slip out when the younger woman touched her. 

Going by the crescent moons Esmé’s platinum-lacquered fingernails were currently digging into the black cashmere, she was in precisely that mood.    

“I assume you haven’t forgotten how to undress me,” commented Georgina in a tone designed to remind her that tonight was not, in fact, one of those nights.

Esmé peeled the blazer back from Georgina’s shoulders. “I haven’t,” she replied as gravity did the rest, “but I thought you wanted me to take my time. Wasn’t that the point of this little exercise? To make you wait? Or _me_ , rather,” she corrected herself, as though the error hadn’t been entirely deliberate. “For you to make _me_ wait? Unless you’re feeling a bit less patient than you thought, in which case…” Cream-colored satin slipped through her fingertips as she plucked the hem of Georgina’s blouse free from her waistband. “I could certainly get you out of this a little faster.”  

“Not yet.” Georgina shook her head, ignoring the pout she received in response. “The belt next.” White fingers finessed the buckle and the leather slithered its way around her waist before falling with a muffled sound to her feet.

 _Feet_ , she thought. _Oh, now **there's** an idea_. 

“You know, Georgie, your tailor did a lovely job with these trousers, but they really are dreadfully _out_ unless there’s a belt to tie the whole ensemble together, so shall I…?”

“I think not.” With a casual gesture, Georgina swatted away the hand that was drifting toward her trouser button.

“Then what, exactly, _do_ you want me to take off, darling? I’m afraid you haven’t left me with very many options.”

Taking a half-step back, Georgina glanced down toward the Persian rug, then back up to stare directly into dark, gold-lined eyes. “My shoes."

“Your _shoes_?”

“I don’t think I stuttered.” Georgina tilted her head to one side. “Is that a problem?”

“Is that a _problem_? Is that a – ” Esmé rose to her feet. “ _I_ ,” she began haughtily, “am Esmé Gigi Geniveve Squalor. I am the City’s sixth-most-important financial advisor. I am fabulously wealthy, and I am unbelievably fashionable, and I am _not_ ,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height, “going to ruin a pair of outrageously expensive silk stockings handmade for me by the _in_ nest lingerie designer in the City just so you can prove some sort of _point_.” 

With her shoulders back and her head high and her face shadowy and severe in the half-light, Esmé looked remarkably imperious for someone wearing so little clothing. Even barefoot, she loomed over Georgina, but the optometrist stood her ground. “There’s no need to remind me who you are, Esmé,” she replied evenly, “but it seems to me you've forgotten who you’re dealing with.”

“Oh, I know perfectly well who I’m – ”

“Good.” She took a step closer. “Then you know I could make you do it. I could make you _want_ to do it. Or anything else, for that matter.”

For a moment, the look on the angular face was inscrutable, which is a word here meaning “difficult to read, even for an optometrist wearing a pair of bespoke spectacles.” Then, just as the shorter woman’s neck began to twinge with the strain of staring up at her, the match-flare of an idea flickered to life in Esmé’s eyes. Pale, cool hands cupped Georgina’s face. The index finger that came to rest on her right cheek was sticky, and she inhaled, catching the tang of arousal on it just as Esmé replied.

“Then prove it, darling.” Georgina’s surprise must have registered on her face. “This is my anniversary present, after all,” Esmé reminded her, “and I do seem to recall mentioning that I was in the mood to try something unusually wicked, which seems like the sort of thing an _infamous_ hypnotist might be tempted to take as an invitation.”

“Now?” Georgina looked pointedly to her left, and then to her right, taking in the vacant beige blandness that was Jerome Squalor’s office. “ _Here?_ ”

Esmé raised an eyebrow. “Why not? Performance anxiety?" She shook her head. "No, that’s not like you. Oh, I suppose it might be easier in your clinic, with your books and your notes and your equipment, not to mention that delightful little examination chair, but I can’t possibly imagine a professional of your caliber really _needs_ any of those things, so what’s the matter?” she pouted. “You’ll only hypnotize people you don’t like?”

 _No_ , Georgina nearly replied, _I normally hypnotize people I don’t **respect**_ , but the actress’ monologue left no room for interruption.

“You’ll only use it on people who don’t want it? Who’re trusting you to help them?” Her laugh was low and lewd, and there was absinthe on her breath. “Oh, you’re _sick_ , Georgie. You’re positively _perverse_ , and do you know what else?”

“Tell me.” The words burned in her throat.

“ _I_ trust you.” Never breaking eye contact, she settled back onto the desk. “I trust you just as much as any of your witless patients, so go on. Show me what you do to them.” Pointedly, she parted her thighs. “Just look at me, darling. I’m positively _dripping_ with curiosity.”

The private arsenal of the City's best-armed financial advisor contained everything from knives and nerve agents to dynamite and dart guns, and in moments like these, it always seemed to Georgina that her voice became a sort of weapon, too. It was as dark and as velvety as the inside of a pistol case. It was sin and sex and shameless, blatant provocation, and while it couldn’t induce a mesmeric state, it certainly seemed to interfere with Georgina’s better judgement. Her better judgement suspected that the hostess’ prolonged absence had almost certainly not gone unnoticed by her guests, or by her husband. Her better judgement recognized that a reasonably competent search party could make quick work of even a seventy-one-bedroom apartment. Her better judgement knew that neither of them could afford to be caught in a compromising position - a phrase which here means “engaged in activities involving both dubious consent and indubitable nudity.” Her better judgement, in short, understood the risks involved in having her way with the Esmé Squalor in the middle of her own anniversary party.

If you have ever found yourself faced with the choice between an apple and a slice of dark chocolate gâteau for dessert, however, then you are already aware even the best of judgement can melt like warm ganache at the offer of something rich and delicious.

Three footfalls echoed in the silence, followed by a scraping sound as Georgina pulled the leather-upholstered chair out from behind Jerome’s desk and arranged it with its back to the window. Three more steps brought her back where she started. No longer reclining, Esmé was perched poker-straight on the edge of the desk. As Georgina reached out toward her, the other woman's eyes fell shut in anticipation of a kiss, only to fly open again when the optometrist unclasped the heavy diamond pendant around around her neck instead.

“Georgie, what are you – ”

“ _Shh_.” Georgina inspected the necklace. The gemstone was smaller than the ruby in the handle of her cane, but not by much. When she slid it to the end of the gold chain and let it swing like a pendulum in the dim glow from the windows, it caught the light equally well, and that was all that really mattered for her present purposes. “Anniversary present?”

Esmé nodded. “He gave it to me this morning.”

 _That settles it_. A thrill of anticipation tingled at the base of her spine as she gestured toward the chair. “Then sit down,” she said, already slipping into the courteously disarming tone she used with her after-hours patients, “and try not to blink.”


	6. Chapter 6

While the phrase " _to bite off more than one can chew_ " accurately illustrates one of the daily irritations that plague individuals with small mouths, this expression more often refers to the difficult and unpleasant experience of attempting to accomplish a task that is beyond one’s capabilities. A Russian translator, for instance, has bitten off more than she can chew if she has agreed to translate the complete works of Alexander Pushkin into Sanskrit by the end of the week, particularly if it is Friday and she has not yet learned the Sanskrit alphabet, and a wealthy but unassertive businessman has almost certainly bitten off more than he can chew if he marries a beautiful financier after only one night with her, particularly if she spent most of that night poring the blueprints of his newly-acquired penthouse apartment.

Twenty-seven unexpectedly challenging minutes into her impromptu hypnosis session, Georgina Orwell was beginning to suspect that she had bitten off more than she could chew.

 _Of course_ , she groused to herself as her patient failed, for the third time, to display even the vaguest hint of hypnotic suggestibility. _Of course she wants to try this **here**. Of course she's never asked for it any of the umpteen times she's barged into the clinic unannounced. That would’ve been much too convenient. _ Frowning, she tried to recall the last time she’d had to rely on one of her field hypnosis techniques rather than the labor-saving inventions in her office. _God, it must’ve been…_

A crimson dress. A skewed wig. A smear of red lipstick around the tip of her cane. A flash of scissor blades and blood over stubble and a jumbling flurry of fury and triumph and arousal and revulsion and _fuck,_ she realized with a feeling like nausea, _you haven’t tried it since **him**. You lost control, you were **weak** , and now you’re out of practice, can’t give her what she wants, can’t do the one thing that sets you apart from every other miserable sadsack she’s fucked and forgotten about –   _        

“Are you absolutely _positive_ you’re doing this properly?” The question sounded just as lucid as it had the first two times Esmé posed it, and therefore at least three times as irritating.

“Esmé.” Georgina clenched her fist around the still-swaying pendant and dropped it onto the desk beside her. “I have studied every notable form of applied hypnosis. I have read Avicenna. I have read Mesmer in the original German. I have read a number of highly sensitive military documents several years before they were declassified, and I spent the better part of a decade developing this technique. I have been using it without incident for nearly half my life, which means I’ve been using it for well over half of yours. I literally, _not_ figuratively, wrote the book on it, to say nothing of several peer-reviewed journal articles published under a variety of pseudonyms, so yes. I strongly suspect that I _am_ doing it properly.”

“Is that your way of saying it’s not you, it’s me? Oh, go on,” Esmé pouted, utterly failing to quail at the glare Georgina shot her over the top of her spectacles. “That was _funny_.”

It was, Georgina admitted, probably a little funny, but she was too preoccupied (a word which here means “focused on the question of why a method that had worked flawlessly for more than thirty years would suddenly fail”) to find it nearly as amusing as Esmé seemed to. “I’m glad you’re keeping yourself entertained,” she said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. It was an old habit left over from late nights in dusty libraries, but something about the pressure seemed to help her focus. “All right. Since you obviously still remember, tell me – did you feel anything unusual this time?”

“Unusual?” Before she could identify the expression on Esmé’s face, it vanished. “Unusual how, exactly?”

“Heavy limbs,” Georgina suggested.

Esmé shook her head.

“Slow pulse? Decreased rate of respiration?”

She shook her head again.

“Loss of peripheral vision in both eyes, followed by a sharpening of central focus?”

“Not particularly,” she replied, although she paused for a moment before she said it. “I really think you ought to try one more time. You know what they say – the fourth time is the charm.”

“Third,” frowned Georgina. “The third time’s the charm.”

Once more, Esmé shook her head. “Three is _out_. Four is _in_ , and besides,” she added with a downward glance, “you’ve still got your shoes on. Unless, of course, you’re planning on giving up on proving your little point.” Slyly, she looked back up from under her lashes. “After all, you’ve hypnotized _thousands_ of people. You hardly need to have one more woman defenseless” – the word sounded silky as it slipped from her lips – “and vulnerable” – she leaned back, bare skin so pale it seemed to glow against the dark leather – “and _utterly_ at your mercy, do you, darling?”

Along with murder, embezzlement, postmodern theatre, and other forms of criminal activity, Esmé Squalor had an uncanny knack for uncovering a half-buried want and transforming it into an aching need. _The most dangerous woman you know, powerless. A blank canvas._ Something deep inside Georgina thrilled at the thought. _Yours_. The fine gold chain was in her grasp before she made the conscious decision to reach for it.

“Focus here, Esmé,” she began. The command was superfluous – a word which here means “unnecessary, because the younger woman was already staring at the necklace in her hand” – but it was how she had begun nearly every hypnosis session for the past three decades, and she didn’t see any reason to break with tradition. With a practiced flick of her wrist, she sent the pendant swaying across Esmé’s field of vision. Black eyes traced its trajectory, sparkling as brightly the diamond they were following while Georgina finished adjusting the arc depth and the swing speed and the angle of refraction relative to the office windows.

“I’m going to count backward from ten,” she continued when she was satisfied with the geometry of the situation. “With each number you hear, you will sink further into a state of complete neutrality. _Ten_. Your feet and your ankles are at rest. _Nine_. The muscles of your calves are slack. _Eight_. Your thighs are” – **_perfect_** , supplied a distinctly unhelpful part of her brain, _to say nothing of what’s between them_ , but there would be time for that later – “comfortably supported. _Seven_. The strain releases from your hip joints. _Six_. That sensation moves up your spine, radiating outward along the muscles of your back. _Five_. Your neck and shoulders” – and here she swallowed hard as she glanced at the long white column of Esmé’s neck, the word “vulnerable” still echoing in her mind – “direct any lingering tension down your arms and out through the tips of your fingers. _Four_. Your body feels heavy and warm. _Three_. Extraneous thoughts settle and resolve. There is nothing but this diamond in front of your eyes and the sound of my voice in your ears. _Two_. The mind is quiet here.” _And here goes nothing,_ Georgina thought, as for the fourth time that night, she swept the diamond abruptly up into her fist and out of Esmé’s sight. “ _One_.”


	7. Chapter 7

The change was instantaneous.

With the object of their focus suddenly absent, Esmé's eyes stared unblinkingly into the middle distance. Although her cheekbones and her jawline were as sharp and stark as ever, her face itself relaxed into a perfect nonexpression. Still, something else struck Georgina as even more remarkable than either her glassy gaze or the unnatural placidness that had settled over her features.

Esmé Squalor was the sort of woman who never seemed to stop moving. She walked faster in seven-inch stilettos than most people could manage in sneakers. She talked quickly, lips and eyes and brows shaping one expression seamlessly into another. Even in her sleep, she twitched and flailed – and, as she had demonstrated in the wee hours of a recent Sunday morning, occasionally kicked - and she had elevated fidgeting to an art form.

In this moment, however, she was still.

Her head rested passively against the leather upholstery. Her slender arms draped over the arms of the chair, not a single errant twitch from the muscles of her shoulders to the tendons in her hands. Her chest rose and fell steadily, as if she was sleeping, and there was a certain softness to the plane of her stomach that never appeared when she was fully awake. Her legs in their sheer black stockings were parted ever-so-slightly at the juncture of her thighs, and Georgina thought she had never seen a woman look quite so suggestive.

Or quite so suggestible.

“Esmé,” she said in her smoothest, most soothing voice, “I’m about to say a word that means a great deal to you. When you hear this word, your will is no longer relevant. You will follow any instructions that follow this word precisely and enthusiastically. When you me say hear the word" - she trailed off, searching for an appropriate word to end the hypnotic state, and recalled the disastrous cocktail on offer in the ballroom - “ _absinthe_ , this effect will vanish. You will remember nothing that happens before that moment and after I say the word” – the pause, she told herself, would allow both cue words to sink into Esmé’s subconscious, and had nothing whatsoever to do with dramatic effect – “ _sugar_.”

A slight widening of the eyes.

An almost-imperceptible arch of the brows.

The ghost of a spark somewhere just off center of the pupils, and Georgina slipped the diamond pendant into her pocket, giddy with the rush of returning confidence. _You see?_ She could have laughed aloud. _You’re still a **brilliant** hypnotist. She’s just stubborn, which you knew, and unusually fond of control, which…_ Her eyes narrowed as they raked over Esmé’s prone form. _Well. Let’s just see about that_.

“I’m going to count back from five,” she said matter-of-factly. _N_ _o point in dragging it out now that she’s under._ “And as I do, you’re going to feel as if you’re waking up from one of those naps you keep taking on my sofa when you don’t feel like helping me with dinner. Five,” she began. “Four. Three. Two. _One_.”

Blinking up at her, Esmé fixed Georgina with a dazzling smile. “Sorry, darling, something must’ve distracted me. What was it you were saying?”

“Sugar.” Three decades of practice had taught her that repeating the cue seemed to maintain the strength of the suggestion, particularly in her cleverer patients, but this one sounded dangerously close to a pet name. It was much too sweet for someone like her to use in the first place, much too soft to apply to a woman who committed murder, arson, and shoplifting with the same kind of malicious glee and often at more or less the same time, but there was something unexpectedly erotic about the sheer, delicious _wrongness_ of it. Reaching out to cup Esmé’s chin in her hand, she stared down at her. “Sugar,” she said again, savoring it this time, “get on your knees.”

If you have ever witnessed an unexpected phenomenon – a sudden snowstorm in July, for example, or the surprise arrival of a long-lost associate in the courtroom where you are on trial for a crime you did not commit – then you have likely also experienced the urge to confirm that the thing you are seeing is actually taking place, and is not an elaborate meteorological hoax or a practical joke carried out by one or more members of the legal profession. In the case of an unseasonable shift in the weather, a climatologist might consult her instruments. In the case of an unanticipated reunion, a volunteer might wait for an unusual reply to an even more unusual question. In the case of the City’s least obedient financial advisor following an order without putting up a fight, however, Georgina Orwell chose to confirm the phenomenon by pushing her luck, a phrase which here means “issuing the command that was directly responsible for the situation in which she found herself.”

Esmé bent to the task at once. Leaning back against the desk, Georgina let her attention wander from the long, white fingers plucking expertly at the laces of her Oxfords to the long, graceful line of her lover’s spine to the long, _long_ time it had been since she had used this particular skill for pleasure rather than business. A few dates to a few masked balls, a few satisfying instances of what her former associates would have called revenge, but she considered poetic justice – it wasn’t a long list, and she couldn’t recall a single instance on it that had offered such a tempting array of possibilities. As the woman at her feet coaxed off first her right shoe and then her left, an especially promising thought occurred to her.

 _She’ll do anything. Which also means she’ll **tell** you anything. _ Esmé had divested her of her socks by now. Her hands rested lightly on the tops of Georgina’s feet, cool against her bare skin, but there was an unusual warmth in her eyes when she looked up.

“Be honest, Esmé,” she commanded. As often as she had uttered that sequence of words, this was the first time she fully trusted the response. “What do you want most right now?”

The answer came without hesitation. “ _You_.”

“And you’re sure about that? More than _anything_ else?”

“Yes, Georgie, _yes_.” If Georgina had harbored any lingering doubts about the other woman’s sincerity, the hunger on her face and the quiver in her voice would have dispelled them.

“I think you ought to be a little more specific. Don’t you agree?”

“Of course I do.”

Georgina gestured wordlessly for her to stand. Her hands came to rest just above the lace garter belt, pulling the taller woman closer. “In that case, _sugar_ ,” she murmured – **_fuck_** _, but that’s more fun than it ought to be_ , she thought, the sibilant _s_ warming her lips as it met the perfumed skin of Esmé’s neck – “tell me how you want me.”

“Your _tongue_.” It was more moan than word, and the lithe body arched needily against her. “Between my legs darling, inside me, and I want you on your back, I want to be on _top_ for once…”

It wasn’t the admission that surprised her; after all, “City’s Sixth-Most-Power-Hungry Financial Advisor Craves Dominant Position” wasn’t a newsworthy headline, even by the Daily Punctilio’s standards. Her own reaction, however, caught her off-guard. She should have rejected the idea out of hand. She should have ordered her to forget about it – there was a beady-eyed, bedheaded, backstabbing _reason_ why she demanded control, and both she and Esmé knew the terms of their arrangement. At best, the image in her mind’s eye should have struck her as inadvisable. Instead, it struck her like electricity, a crackling, dangerous thrill that registered just south of her gut.

 _Be serious_ , she admonished herself. Even under hypnosis, less capable of argument than her husband, Esmé Squalor was a difficult woman to say no to. _You can’t actually be considering – just turn her down, for Chrissake!_ _It’s not as if it would be the first time. It’s not as if what she wants **matters** right now. You made sure of that._ Georgina tilted her head back –

And froze with the word _no_ halfway out of her mouth.

The eyes peering down at her glittered, blackish-green and gleaming in the gloom, wide and dark and the furthest thing from beady. The hair that framed her lover's face was immaculately coiffed into the kind of glossy curls that suggested not only meticulous hygiene, but also the use of styling products other than grease, and if there was one thing Georgina knew with absolute certainty, it was that if Esmé Squalor wanted to stab you, she’d look you in the face and smile while she did it.

 _She’s not him_. _She’s nothing **like** him, and anyway,_ _she’ll never remember it._ Something wicked settled low in her belly. _You used to love fucking that way. What's the harm? You get what you want, she gets what she wants, and she can’t be insufferable about it afterward, because as far as she’s concerned, it never even happened._

Sometimes, the hypnotist thought as she shifted backward onto Jerome’s desk, her perspicacity – a word which often means “insight and logical acumen,” but here means “ability to pretend that a decision originates in the brain, rather than in another, less reasonable organ” – impressed even Georgina herself.


	8. Chapter 8

Soft.

In the intervening years – decades, if she was brutally honest with herself – since the last time she had allowed herself to experiment with this position, Georgina Orwell had nearly forgotten the overpowering impression of _softness_ it created. Silky thighs to either side of her face, slim and surprisingly strong. An occasional brush of lace – the tops of the stockings she hadn’t felt like allowing Esmé to remove. The supple skin of hips that bucked insistently in her grip, but not quite insistently enough to bring bare, slick flesh into contact with her lips.

“Come _on_ , Georgie, you’re – _mm_ ,” growled Esmé anything but softly as she tried and failed to force her way forward. “You’re really not in a position to tease, you know.”

“Aren’t I?” Holding the City’s sixth-least-patient financial advisor still was beginning to tax Georgina’s forearms, not to mention her self-control, but she refused to let either strain make its way into her voice. Pursing her lips slightly, she exhaled, directing a stream of cool air toward what she strongly suspected was the single most overheated spot on her lover’s body and chuckling low in her throat when the sensation stiffened Esmé’s spine. “Well, if I’m not in a position to tease, _sugar_ ,” she suggested, “tell me what it is you think I’m doing.”

“You’re proving one of your _points_ ,” huffed Esmé. “As _fucking_ usual. You’re proving – **_oh_** _,_ ” she interrupted herself as Georgina blew another breath against her, this time coming away with a hint of moisture on her lips – “a point, and you’re being an absolute _bitch_ about it.”

Under ordinary circumstances, Georgina liked to think Esmé might have hesitated to hurl that particular epithet. But there was nothing ordinary about these circumstances, and there was nothing ordinary about the sensation in her groin when she heard it. “So that’s what you think,” she said. “That’s very interesting. Do you know what _I_ think?”

“N- _uh_ ,” said Esmé with another futile buck of her hips.

“I think a _bitch_ ” – the word felt sharp in Georgina’s mouth – “might make you beg. Do you want to beg, Esmé?”

Instantly, the woman above her stilled. “No.”

“Be honest.”

“ _No!_ ”

“Too bad.” Her fingertips rasped against the lace of the garter belt as she dug them into the skin beneath, coaxing Esmé into the position she’d been vying for just a moment before. This close to the apex of the other woman’s thighs, the smell of her was overwhelming; when Georgina opened her mouth, it took every ounce of her restraint to keep from using her tongue for something other than speech. “Do it anyway,” she ground out. “You want me more than anything. That’s what you said, _sugar_. So beg for me.”

“ _Fuck me_ , darling, _please_ ,” Esmé moaned, and it was utterly surreal to hear the word slip from her mouth so easily. “Don’t be cruel, don’t make me wait any longer, I can’t stand it anymore, **_please_** ,” and Georgina had meant to draw this out. She had meant to tease her mercilessly, to extract payment in kind for every lingering cocktail-party cheek kiss and every syllable of filth muttered into her ear in the middle of a crowded restaurant and every interminable evening spent keeping her hands to herself while the Esmé stared at her from across a crowded room, an obligatory arm wrapped around her husband’s waist while she undressed her with her eyes, but then the raw, desperate edge of a sob slipped into the actress’ voice, and earthy heat filled Georgina’s mouth before she could decide which of them she was taking pity on.

She had spent enough time between Esmé’s legs that the experience should have begun to feel routine. Then again, to a woman with both the means and the motivation to re-dye her hair and replace her entire wardrobe and redecorate every last room of her penthouse every time a new trend made the papers, the word _routine_ probably sounded as foreign as the word _coupon_ and as laughable as the words _delayed gratification_.

Not, Georgina admitted as lush folds parted obligingly around her tongue, that she was complaining. There was a certain thrill in never quite knowing which version of Esmé was slipping into bed beside her or tugging her into a convenient coat closet. Some things never changed, of course – the fullness of her lips, the involuntary arch of her back when Georgina played her fingers over the base of her spine, the masterpiece of sculpted curves that emerged when the day’s couture slithered or jangled or clanked its way to the floor. Other things ( _“Red hair is **in** now, darling, and that means **everywhere** ”_) changed dramatically. Still others changed more subtly, side effects of larger modifications elsewhere, and Georgina wondered briefly which trend in _haute cuisine_ was responsible for the hint of tangy sweetness currently mingling with the familiar musk of Esmé’s essence in the back of her throat.

It didn’t matter. With a groan she was glad the other woman wouldn’t remember, Georgina buried her face more firmly against her. What mattered was _more_. _More_ slicked her chin. _More_ coated her lips, rich and hot and nowhere near enough. Something about Esmé Squalor turned curiosity to addiction with terrifying speed, created the kind of cravings that could only ever be satisfied with –

“More,” Esmé insisted breathlessly. “More, Georgie, ohgodyes, like that, like _that-a-a-t…”_

Sinking her tongue as deep as the anatomy of her mouth and the slickness of the channel would allow, Georgina smirked at the high-pitched whimper. The sharp ridges of Esmé’s hipbones dug into her palms, and without and real forethought – _curiosity_ , she decided hastily, _not giving in, **certainly** nothing about arthritic hands, just satisfying another curiosity _ – she found herself loosening her grip.

Anyone else might have tested the waters. Anyone else might have started off with an experimental rock forward and back, then another, identifying the boundaries on the tacit offer. But Esmé Squalor hadn’t tested any kind of water since her infamous aqueous martini tasting gala, and except when cartography happened to be _in_ , she had no interest in boundaries whatsoever. She ground herself against Georgina with the shameless confidence of a woman who not only knew what she wanted, but was also fully accustomed to taking it.

“Right there,” she hissed. As if her thighs weren’t already trapping her firmly in place, she reached down to tangle a manicured hand into Georgina’s hair. “ _Right_ where I want you.”

Esmé’s rhythm was just erratic enough to demand most of her attention, but the sodden ache between her own legs throbbed out an insistent counterpoint that grew harder to ignore with every passing second. _Let it build. The longer it takes, the better it’ll feel. It’s her turn next, even if she doesn’t know it, and she’s all yours as long as the hypnosis holds. Let her come so hard she sees stars, then make her kneel down and fuck you while her knees are still shaking._

Judging by the mouth-watering abundance of Esmé’s arousal, she wouldn’t have long to wait.

“So _fucking_ good, _mm_ , that’s positively _obscene…_ ”

The way she sounded as she approached the edge was among of the handful of things about Esmé that didn’t change with the whims of fashion. The ragged breathing. The desperate bite behind her words. The sharp, guttural _unh_ , halfway between a growl and an unladylike grunt, that shook its way loose from the back of her throat whenever Georgina worked a particularly sensitive spot.

The sudden, hollow staccato of a knock on the door –


	9. Chapter 9

Both women froze.

 _Taptaptap_. Knuckles against the wood of a door Georgina suddenly couldn’t remember if she had locked. If she hadn’t – _well_. There was no alternative explanation for this, no glib excuse. Despite the hours of disguise training, and regardless of their respective years spent onstage and undercover, neither one of them stood a chance of passing this scene off as anything other than exactly what it was. Rather than scramble for a pretext, her mind went oddly blank, as if to keep itself from giving them away by thinking too loudly.

“Esmé, my dear, are you in there?”

Jerome. Of course it was Jerome. Any second now, Esmé would fling herself away from her and into a whirlwind of movement, leaving Georgina to…what, exactly? The space beneath the desk might not conceal her fully. She supposed she could flatten herself against the far side of the bookcase, but her reflection would be so clearly visible in the plate-glass window that even a man like Jerome Squalor couldn’t help but notice it.

The doorknob rattled, a metallic clatter followed by two barely-audible sighs of relief when the door held fast.

“Now, who in the world would have locked this door?”

 _Then again, maybe he **wouldn’t** notice that reflection_.

The knob rattled again, halfheartedly this time. “Better fetch the key,” Jerome muttered. “All that hostessing must be awfully stressful, especially on top of the late nights at the office and those business trips she keeps taking every weekend. I wouldn’t blame her for taking a break and drifting off, although my office would certainly make an odd place for it…still, no stone left unturned, I suppose.”

His voice faded as he turned away from the door and set off down the hallway. “Thank god,” breathed Georgina, still not daring to raise her voice. “How long do you suppose it’ll take him to find that key?”

“He keeps it in the breast pocket of his second-favorite navy suit,” Esmé replied. “Since navy is  _in_ for menswear, it should be hanging in his wardrobe, and there’s a shortcut through the semi-formal living room that leads straight to the bedroom wing, so I can’t imagine he’ll be gone more than ten minutes.” She made no move to get up.

“Just enough time to – ” Before Georgina could utter the words “make ourselves decent and get back to the ballroom,” Esmé settled further into her thoroughly _in_ decent position, her scent tantalizingly, head-spinningly thick.

“Finish me,” she supplied.

It was pure hedonism. Worse – it was _narcissism_ , and more to the point, it was risky well beyond the point of absurdity. Georgina was midway telling her just that when the words grew muffled, transformed without conscious intent into open-mouthed kisses and broad, strong strokes of her tongue that left the younger woman gasping as she licked deftly along the dripping length of her slit. In fifteen minutes, or in twenty – if Jerome had hidden the damn key in the foyer or the sauna or one of the walk-in refrigerators in the kitchen wing – she knew for a fact that she could send Esmé over the edge. But with less than half that time…

A tide of desperation and lust threatened to shatter her concentration as Esmé began to rut against her once again ( _fucking you, Christ, how is it that you're the one getting her off, but she’s the one fucking you?_ ), and Georgina felt a jolt of surprise when she reached the apex of her sex. _Fingers. Oh, **god** , she’s – _Hopelessly farsighted without her glasses, she felt rather than saw two slim digits swirling expertly over Esmé’s clit, working the swollen nub in tandem with her own ministrations farther down. _And she swears she doesn’t believe in teamwork_. It was far from the first time she had touched herself in Georgina’s presence – to an actress with an unapologetic tendency toward exhibitionism, it seemed that all the world really was a stage – but Georgina herself had never been quite so intimately involved in the process.

“ _Mm_ ,” she moaned, although she hadn’t intended to.

The hand in her hair clenched. “You like this.” Someone else might have phrased it as a question. From Esmé, it was a declaration, the words blurring together into a smoldering undertone. “All that control, all that restraint, **_fuck_** ” – a savage buck of her hips – “all those _filthy_ things you wish you didn’t want, but you do want them, Georgie, you want _me_ …”

Once, in a distinctly uncharitable mood, Georgina had accused Esmé of getting off on the sound of her own voice. There would be no such accusation tonight, not because it was any less true (which it wasn’t), and not because her mouth was otherwise occupied (which it was), but because she could feel her favorite pair of French-cut underwear growing less salvageable with every insidious syllable, and while she had fully embraced murder, mind control, and the unlawful practice of optometry, she refused on principle to add hypocrisy to the list of her crimes.

Esmé’s thighs gave a telltale quiver. “ _Don’t stop_ ,” she hissed, and Georgina could picture with absolute clarity the tendon that stood out in her throat as she clenched her teeth. “Don’t stop, pleasedon’tstop, don’tyoufucking _dare_ , not even if he opens that door right this second, let him catch us, let h- _ah._ ” Her breath hitched. “Let him see what you do to me, _unh_ yes, what I do to _you_ , what it’s like if I don’t have to fake it when I’m c – ohgod _coming_ , darling, **_coming_** – ”

Georgina Orwell considered herself a grudging expert on drowning. Like most survivors of unexpected immersion, prolonged exposure to theatrical professionals, and other life-threatening emergencies, she generally chose not to relive the ordeal, but tonight, with a warm rush of moisture sluicing over the lower portion of her face and an exquisitely exposed actress writhing above her, she felt as if she was drowning on the most pleasurable possible terms.

Unlike her first near-death experience, the moment passed far too quickly. Esmé shifted shakily backward. Before the cool air of the office could soothe Georgina’s flushed cheeks, however, her lover settled astride her hips to stare down at her with the unmistakable look of a woman admiring her handiwork. Georgina was still more or less clothed – barefoot, yes, and with the majority of her blouse buttons unfastened, but just as she became aware of the damp patch Esmé was currently leaving on the front of her trousers, she found herself distracted.

Sinuously – remarkably so, given the amount of time she’d just spent kneeling on unyielding mahogany – Esmé lowered herself. She took her time, supporting her weight on her elbows before allowing first her toned stomach, then the hard ridge of her ribcage, and finally the firm swells of her breasts to press against Georgina’s body. Warm and supple, her mouth skimmed over the point of the hypnotist’s chin. “ _Perfect,_ ” she murmured.

Her lips were still slick when Georgina kissed her.


	10. Chapter 10

“It’s stuck."

With both shoes now neatly laced, Georgina straightened up. Esmé was facing away from her, both arms straining at awkward angles as she struggled with something behind her back. “The zipper?” asked the optometrist as she plucked her spectacles off the bookshelf. When the world snapped into focus, she saw that she had guessed correctly.

“If I can’t get this dress back on,” huffed Esmé, “the worthless idiot who designed it won’t be able to sell so much as a _fabric scrap_ in this city by the time I’m through with him. He’ll spend the rest of his miserable life without a single fucking client.” Another fruitless yank. “Assuming I let him live that long. Darling, could you possibly…?”

Georgina closed the distance between them, brushing the other woman’s hands out of her way. A shimmering wrinkle of cloth had entangled itself in the metal teeth; once she had freed it, the dress zipped with no further complications. “Turn around,” she ordered, partly because it seemed prudent to inspect Esmé for any incriminating evidence before she returned to the party and partly to let herself savor the alacrity – a word which here means “speed and general lack of complaint” – with which she obeyed one last command.

There wasn’t time to savor it for long. Footsteps began to echo down the corridor outside, plodding closer with a sort of flat-footed urgency. “Esmé,” she said hurriedly, “when you get back to the ballroom, you should check that the bartender is using the right brand of _absinthe_ in the cocktails.”

At the mention of the cue word, Esmé blinked a few times in rapid succession before shaking her head slightly. “Of course,” she replied, and started toward the door. When she reached it, however, she turned to glance over her shoulder, one hand resting on the knob. There was something odd about her expression. Georgina had long ago come to recognize the dazed disorientation of a hypnosis patient returning to full consciousness, but Esmé’s eyes gleamed with an uncanny clarity in the half-light.

“Oh, and Georgie,” she added in a voice that should have sounded much, much more muddled than it did, “we both know how lovely I taste tonight, but there's really no need to call me _sugar_." With a triumphant grin, the City's sixth-most-important financial advisor turned the doorknob and stepped out into the hallway to intercept her husband, leaving the suddenly slack-jawed optometrist alone with her thoughts.

**Author's Note:**

> This work was created for Tumblr user @call-me-ish (InsideMyBrain) and posted as part of ASoUE Fic4Fic 2017.


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